Over the next few days, a number of IT personnel (within the support areas for its Global Banking & Markets unit) will be provided with a letter informing them that they have been placed at risk of redundancy.

Job losses will mostly hit personnel who provide IT and operational support to the businesses being run down or divested by the bank following its 2007 merger with ABN AMRO

Meanwhile, RBS has hired a new batch of management consultants, who will arrive at RBS next week. So will temp or contractor staff who will be given full time jobs.

The real reason this is happening: an ineffective, expensive program called North Star, a general lack of incisive decision-making, and uninspiring leadership.

One of the reasons for the just-mentioned uninspiring leadership, the writer suggests, is that RBS hires outside upper-management, rather than promoting from within.

“The resulting reporting lines often make no sense to those of us on the inside,” he or she writes.

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